dusk
by skiing Pelican
Summary: Dean had to put up with a lot in his long life as hunter. But why is a certain Angel still putting up with him? Dean/Cas; more info and warnings inside


**dusk**

**Title**: dusk

**Author**: skiing_pelican

**Rating**: PG13 (some swearing. Blame Dean)

**Genre and/or Pairing**: established Dean/Cas, brief mentions of Sam/Other and Bobby (and Gabriel, if you squint)

**Spoilers**: if you know all the characters mentioned above, you're fine.

**Warnings/tags**: major character death, Dean/Cas, slash, established relationship, domestic, angst, au,

**Word Count:** ~2700

**Beta:** by awesome lefty_spit from livejournal who betas for me even if she is not active in this fandom right now because she is so awesome!

**Teaser:** It's the evening of Dean's life.

**Authors note:**

I really don't know how this happened... The first inspiration came from a story I read over at LJ. There was a line where Dean realised Cas would grow old. Oddly, the thought of them growing old stayed in my brain until I had to write. Hence, this happened... but it took a turn I didn't even expect myself. And sorry for missing creativity with names, lol. Please tell me what you think of this, I'm really unsure this time since I've never written anything like this before. Any kind of critique is very welcome.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own nothing.

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It was chill this morning in Dean's old house. Which was Bobby's old house really, but not many were left to remember that. No matter how long Dean had lived there, fixed cars, answered the phones and researched, just like the old hunter did, it would always stay Bobby's old house. No matter Bobby was long gone; his ashes buried behind the house next to Sam's and some others that had gone in and out of his life. But the kids didn't remember that and he wondered again how he managed to stay alive.

It was never a good start of the day when Dean's thoughts travelled around such things. Neither was it a good start of the day when he woke up and Cas was not there, not warming the bed for his chilly old bones. Grumbling, he sauntered down to grab some coffee and a beer, because seriously, the day was already starting like crap. Cas was sitting in the study, hunched over one book or another, deep in study. One of the phones rang, but nobody moved. The phone rang again. Dean finally put his cup down and griped: "Damn it, Cas, can't you answer the friggin' phone for once?"

Dean hurried over to reach the phone in time, but Cas appeared in front of it, rumbling the appropriate answer into the speaker. Dean paced around, pretending not to care, but listened curiously. Cas was giving some advice to a hunter.

"No, your information has been wrong. Loki is not a trickster." Pause. "Are you sure it's him?" Longer pause. "Yes, that sounds like him." Pause. "You can't kill him. You should not try to kill him." Short pause. "He is not an entity you need to hunt." Pause. Sigh. "Trust me on this." Pause. "I will."

Castiel hung up.

"Who was it?" Dean asked curiously, always concerned about all the young hunters out there.

"It was Deanna. She asked me to send you greetings."

"What, you don't pass me the phone when Deanna calls?" Dean asked irritated.

"You asked me to answer it." Castiel replied, sounding just a little bit annoyed.

"I asked you to answer it, not to grip to it until you die! She's Sam's granddaughter, for fuck's sake, and named after me!"

"I will remember that for future reference." Cas replied evenly.

"You didn't even ask her how she's doing..." Dean rumbled on, really annoyed now thanks to Cas' obvious ignorance.

"Why should I?" Cas simply asked. " I know she's fine."

Dean shuffled back to the kitchen angrily, rumbling something along the lines of friggin' angel under his breath.

/-/

Later that day, Dean was working in the scrapyard. One of the kids had almost totaled her mini and brought it to Dean to fix it.

Yeah, a mini. A pink one at that.

Which self-respecting hunter would voluntarily drive a ridiculous pink mini? A Winchester, apparently. And the worst fact: Sam bought it for her. Damn Sam, that bitch. No wonder his kids drove pink minis.

The things he did for the kids. With every day that passed, he understood Bobby's exasperation more.

He dropped a wrench and bent down to grab it, cursing in the process. He straightened up, just a little too fast and something snapped wrong in his spine. "Jesus motherfucking Christ!" he cursed out loudly and held onto the ugly pink sides of the mini to keep from falling. The pain burned through his whole body, and Dean had to squint his eyes very hard to keep tears of pain from welling up behind his lids.

With a flutter of wings, Cas was standing beside him and reached out to him. Just a touch, and the pain was gone.

"Dean, you should stop working so hard." Cas said, worry painfully clear in his voice.

"Who else would? Someone's gotta take care of those kids!" Dean tried to defend himself.

"You have to take better care of yourself, Dean." Cas insisted.

"I'm fine." Dean snapped. "I'm not an old, useless wreck yet!"

Cas looked up at Dean, contemplating the gray shade of his hair. There weren't many streaks left that reminded of his old color.

"Dean... you are not a useless wreck. But to human standards, you are old."

Dean shifted uncomfortably where he was standing, crossing his arms in front of his chest defensively. "My dad's hair got gray early. Besides, you're still around."

Cas frowned at that, pleading at Dean with his puppy dog eyes. "Dean, I'm tired of fixing you. I don't wish to see you hurt."

That only irritated Dean more. "Well, you've got it easy!" he exclaimed loudly, gesturing frustrated in the general direction of Cas' young, flawless body.

"I'm not that old yet!" he added angrily and stormed away.

/-/

Dean didn't touch the ridiculous pink mini the rest of the day. The incident had reminded him much too painfully that he was really getting old. His bones were aching from the day's work, and the sun wasn't even down yet. Life as a hunter apparently took it's toll on the body, even when you had an Angel around to fix you up.

Sighing, he took a beer from the fridge and flunked down on the bench outside the house. He had never even hoped he would live this long. His live was always just about going on despite all the odds and about taking care of his family. Deep in thought, he stared at the falling sun. He didn't need to look to know that Cas had appeared next to him with a bottle of his own.

"You forgot to open your bottle." Cas observed with his low rumble. Dean allowed himself to marvel for a second over the calm and steady gravel that accompanied him for so many years now. God, he was turning into a sap in his old days.

"Huh, I did." he wondered. "Damn."

He straightened himself to get up to open it, but Cas stopped him by grabbing Dean's arm.

"Don't." he said simply, reaching over to flip the bottle open with his bare, perfect, young fingers. He made it look so easy as if a baby could do it.

"Thanks." Dean said smiling.

After a short moment of companionable silence, he laughed lightly. "Do you remember when I tried to teach you to open a bottle with a knife?"

"It still is unneeded knowledge to me." Cas smiled back at him.

"Yeah." he agreed, smiling back at Cas, right into those damned blue eyes. They had spent decades together, but Cas' eyes still sucked him right in, the ice blue colors mesmerizing him. It still was so hard to look away once those shining blue orbs set on his face, filled with so much wisdom, knowledge and warmth. He had memorized every shade of blue in them long ago, and all the little patterns within. He knew them with his heart in any state they could be, from tiny black dots on a shiny day to blown apart with lust in the bedroom.

Cas finally turned his head to the falling sun. It was low enough to dip the world in warm, red light, coloring the peaceful clouds with shades of pink.

Dean sighed, admiring the spectacle before them and took a long sip of his beer. He looked down at it then, and extended his hand to the side.

"One for Bobby, the old drunk..." he said, pouring a large gulp onto the sandy earth.

"... and one for Sammy, the bitch." he added, repeating the process.

Cas watched his movements, not saying a word about the pointlessness of the action. Dean missed Sam. Like, a lot. He knew Cas checked on his brother from time to time up in heaven, and that helped a bit. But it didn't set his mind at ease because Sam was gone, lost forever, he was never ever coming back. He could never again talk to him face to face and call him a bitch. Sam would never see the sheepish smile of Mary when she drove the almost totalled ridiculous pink mini up to his porch. Or John, who finally decided to marry the girl that gifted him with Sam's beautiful two granddaughters. Or all the other little things... Life went on, even without Sam, and Dean was glad that he was still alive and kicking to look after the kids. Because no one else would.

He missed Sam. He missed him so much it almost felt like physical pain.

But Cas was still there. Sitting right next to him, as always, and Dean had no fucking idea how that happened. He was sitting there, despite of all that happend and despite how much Dean was pushing his buttons all the time.

"Cas, why do you still put up with me?" he suddenly asked. The question came out on impulse, and as soon as it was said he regretted asking. There was only one type of talk questions like this would lead to, and it was definitely not the type of talk Dean wanted to have.

Cas turned his head to look back at Dean surprised. "I do not understand."

Dean waved around awkwardly, gesturing in the general direction of himself. "Why are you still here? ... You know ... with me?"

God, how Dean hated himself sometimes.

"Where else would I be?"

And why was the damn Angel so dense? Dean paused shortly, searching for the right words, but fuck, he knew the Angel wouldn't get it. Frustrated, he decided to spill it all out, short and painless.

"Fuck, Cas, I'm an old, wrinkled, ugly man. I'm a drunk, I'm too loud, I'm getting on your holy nerves all the time, I get angry over every-friggin'-nothing, I swear like hell and blaspheme on jesus fuckin' christ and your friggin' dad five times a day! How come you're not tired of me?"

Cas stared at him, wide eyed and clueless. Dean waited, while Cas was apparently searching for his lines in this weird play of theirs.

"I still don't understand," he finally said, "you have always been like that."

"But you must be tired of it by now!" Dean insisted, getting even more frustrated now.

Cas shook his head slowly. "Dean. Your soul still shines as brightly as the first time I saw it."

"No surprise there, I was in hell."

"Even there, it was beautiful."

"Don't say stuff like that." Dean murmured defensively. Fuck, he had started a chick flick moment. Damn. Fuck, Fuck, Fuck.

"Dean, as I pointed out earlier, you are old to human standards. But you are but a child compared to me. I have lived millenia, and the time we spent together was only a blink of an eye in face of eternity. Do you really think I could grow tired of you so fast?"

Dean was getting even more uncomfortable now. He didn't know where he was going with this himself anymore. "But I'll be dead soon." he stated, leaving the _and you will live on forever _to hang unspoken in the air.

"You do realise that I can seek you out in heaven?" Cas asked.

"Of course I know! But... you will have stuff to do... and you know..." Dean travelled off, painfully aware of how ridiculous he must sound. In his own head, dead still meant gone. He couldn't grasp the concept of heaven as a place where people could just fly in and out like that. Death as the ultimate, separating force was deeply engraved in his brain from his life as a hunter, from seeing so many people and monster die. He knew that Cas could come to him, but some stupid part of his brain feared they would be separated. That maybe, Cas would just go on. Stay on earth. Forget him. Dean wouldn't even blame him, Cas was this magnificent, ancient being, and he didn't even understand why Cas was putting up with him in the first place.

And Cas was staring at him again. Drilling with those soul-searching blue orbs into his brain, a big question written all over his face.

"What do you mean?" he asked again.

Stupid Angel. Why was he always this dense?

"It's nothing. Forget it."

Dean turned away and tried focusing on the sky again. The sun had fallen, but there was still a warm glow illuminating the earth,

darkening down ever so slowly. Suddenly, Cas grabbed his chin and forced Dean to look at him.

"Dean, tell me. What is bothering you?"

His face was full of concern and the big question mark was still there. Cas was frowning at him with puppy dog eyes that could have beaten Sam's on his best days.

"You... would... visit me? ...From time to time, right?" Dean stammered finally. He felt so ridiculously sappy, and if he still had any bit of his balls left after decades of living gay, he was sure it was gone now. He blamed Cas and his ridiculous denseness.

"Of course I would visit you." Cas replied, finally understanding. His liquid eyes softened as he let go of Dean's chin. "I'm only down here for you, Dean. I will stay with you up in Heaven. I'm not tired of you, and I don't think I will ever grow tired of you, even if we stay together long enough that the age difference between us doesn't seem that big anymore."

"Cas..." Dean just murmured, staring right back in those loved blue eyes, at a loss for better words. He grabbed Cas hand and squeezed it hard. He didn't need to put into words what he felt, he couldn't, and he knew it was written all over his face, and he had told Cas often enough. Besides, this chick-flick moment didn't need to get any worse.

Cas watched, as Dean refused to let go of the moment, staring up at him despite his exhaustion, until Dean's eyelids finally fluttered closed and he laid down against Cas in a more comfortable position. His breathing evened as he fell into sleep, secure in Cas' arms, deepening and slowing as he slipped slowly away into nirvana. Cas stayed there, the whole time, watching and protecting the last, peaceful breaths of his soul mate, holding tight to his body for the last time.

Cas couldn't help but feel grief as he pressed a last kiss onto Dean's mouth. Dean was right... this life was gone forever. He could never again hold Dean in his arms like he loved to, this loud, writhing human form that was jamming all the brain cells in his vessels head when he so much as looked at him. But at the same time, a new beginning was dawning, and he was looking forward to it with strong anticipation.

He had no idea how their life would be up in heaven. But he would be at Dean's side. It was going to be okay.

And Dean didn't need to worry. He would look after the kids.

-Fin-


End file.
